Giving thanks to God, the St. Vladimir's Seminary community is celebrating the ordination of Dr. Vitaly Permiakov, the Seminary's ecclesiarch and assistant professor of liturgical theology, to the rank of deacon in the Orthodox Church. The Rev. Dn. Vitaly was ordained through the hand of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon at Three Hierarchs Chapel on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2021.
Dn. Vitaly joined St. Vladimir's as a full-time faculty member in August 2020, following an extensive search for a gifted scholar to fill the liturgical theology professorship, a historically prominent position at the Seminary. Already in his short tenure at the Seminary, he has become an integral part of the Seminary's academic and spiritual life, also taking on the role of ecclesiarch at Three Hierarchs Chapel and co-editing the new-look St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly.
Dn. Vitaly Permiakov was born to a Russian family in Riga, Latvia, and relocated to the United States in 1999 after completing his undergraduate studies at the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga. He went on to earn a masters degree in humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas, then entered St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary with the blessing of late Archbishop Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas (OCA) (d. 2011). After finishing seminary, Dn. Permiakov enrolled in a doctoral program in Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where in 2012 he defended his dissertation on the history and origins of the Byzantine rite for the consecration of churches.
Dn. Permiakov taught at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary (Jordanville, NY) from 2011 to 2020 before joining St. Vladimir's Seminary as assistant professor of liturgical theology.
He was tonsured to the ecclesiastical rank of reader in 2002 and ordained subdeacon on the Feast of Annunciation in 2021; both took place also at three Hierarchs Chapel.
May God grant the Rev. Dn. Vitaly many years! AXIOS!
